Origin and taxonomy of broccoli

Abstract

This popular vegetable may have been known to the Greeks, 2,500 years ago. Present-day varieties have been developed principally from forms that have arisen in Italy in the past 2,000 years. The name, meaning “bucktooth”, was probably a Latin colloquial term applied to any projecting shoots of members of the cabbage family.

Based upon data presented in Ph.D. thesis, University of California, September, 1954.